Glenn's bookshelf: Part 3

Does it seem like every time you tune into the radio show Glenn's talking about another book he just read? He might just be the most well read man on the airwaves and now he's ready to share his list with you.

It's turned into quite an extensive list so over the next few days we will post enough recommendations to keep you busy all through 2019 and beyond. Pick up a book or 20 and read the material that's been shaping Glenn's thinking this past year.

The Bill of Rights is very hard to understand if you just pick it up and give it a read.

The eloquent style in which it was written can be confusing.

There's a lot of legal terminology that's beyond most of us.

And without the right historical background, it's impossible to fully understand the meaning, importance, and scope of several of the amendments (and especially the second amendment).

Furthermore, there are countless politicians and mainstream pundits that want to interpret our rights for us and tell us what the Founders meant, making it even harder to know what to believe.

But are you comfortable letting crooked baby-kissers and propagandists decide what your rights are? Or would you rather discover them for yourself?

In other words, would you rather know and insist on the exact freedoms our Founders intended for you, your family, your friends, and your fellow Americans?

If you're like millions of other Americans, your answer to that question is YES, and this book is for you.

It will help you quickly and easily reach a deep understanding of the Bill of Rights by...

Walking you through each amendment, clarifying the precise definitions of key words, so you understand exactly what the Founders wanted you to know.

Providing you with the key historical context you need to fully grasp and spirit and importance of the amendments, so you understand how they apply to our 21st century society.

Sharing powerfully insightful quotes on each amendment, straight from the Founders and their peers, so you have absolutely no questions as to their purposes and intentions.

Supplying you with an extensive glossary of terms so you never get lost in a dictionary or encyclopedia trying to understand what you're reading.

And more.

Thomas Jefferson once said, "Educate and inform the whole mass of the people...They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty."

And he also said, "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was and never will be."

That's why this book was created.

My mission is to teach you truths most people will never know about their specific rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.And that's what you're going to learn in this book: the things the two-faced corruptocrats and their media lackeys absolutely hate the most about our country and Constitution.

The Founders fought tirelessly to guarantee you specific rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Don't lose them. Learn them.

Technological advances have benefited our world in immeasurable ways, but there is an ominous flip side: our technology can be turned against us. And just over the horizon is a tidal wave of scientific progress that will leave our heads spinning—from implantable medical devices to drones and 3-D printers, all of which can be hacked, with disastrous consequences.

With explosive insights based on a career in law enforcement and counterterrorism, leading authority on global security Marc Goodman takes readers on a vivid journey through the darkest recesses of the Internet. He explores how bad actors are primed to hijack the technologies of tomorrow. Provocative, thrilling, and ultimately empowering, Future Crimes will serve as an urgent call to action that shows how we can take back control of our own devices and harness technology's tremendous power for the betterment of humanity—before it's too late.

Making conscientious choices about technology in our families is more than just using internet filters and determining screen time limits for our children. It's about developing wisdom, character, and courage in the way we use digital media rather than accepting technology's promises of ease, instant gratification, and the world's knowledge at our fingertips. And it's definitely not just about the kids.

Drawing on in-depth original research from the Barna Group, Andy Crouch shows readers that the choices we make about technology have consequences we may never have considered. He takes readers beyond the typical questions of what, where, and when and instead challenges them to answer provocative questions like, Who do we want to be as a family? and How does our use of a particular technology move us closer or farther away from that goal? Anyone who has felt their family relationships suffer or their time slip away amid technology's distractions will find in this book a path forward to reclaiming their real life in a world of devices.

In as little as a decade, artificial intelligence could match and then surpass human intelligence. Corporations and government agencies around the world are pouring billions into achieving AI's Holy Grail―human-level intelligence. Once AI has attained it, scientists argue, it will have survival drives much like our own. We may be forced to compete with a rival more cunning, more powerful, and more alien than we can imagine.

Through profiles of tech visionaries, industry watchdogs, and groundbreaking AI systems, James Barrat's Our Final Invention explores the perils of the heedless pursuit of advanced AI. Until now, human intelligence has had no rival. Can we coexist with beings whose intelligence dwarfs our own? And will they allow us to?

In this authoritative and eye-opening book, Max Tegmark describes and illuminates the recent, path-breaking advances in Artificial Intelligence and how it is poised to overtake human intelligence. How will AI affect crime, war, justice, jobs, society and our very sense of being human? The rise of AI has the potential to transform our future more than any other technology—and there's nobody better qualified or situated to explore that future than Max Tegmark, an MIT professor who's helped mainstream research on how to keep AI beneficial.

How can we grow our prosperity through automation without leaving people lacking income or purpose? What career advice should we give today's kids? How can we make future AI systems more robust, so that they do what we want without crashing, malfunctioning or getting hacked? Should we fear an arms race in lethal autonomous weapons? Will machines eventually outsmart us at all tasks, replacing humans on the job market and perhaps altogether? Will AI help life flourish like never before or give us more power than we can handle?

What sort of future do you want? This book empowers you to join what may be the most important conversation of our time. It doesn't shy away from the full range of viewpoints or from the most controversial issues—from superintelligence to meaning, consciousness and the ultimate physical limits on life in the cosmos.

While Alec Ross was working as Senior Advisor for Innovation to the Secretary of State, he traveled to forty-one countries, exploring the latest advances coming out of every continent. From startup hubs in Kenya to R&D labs in South Korea, Ross has seen what the future holds.

In The Industries of the Future, Ross provides a "lucid and informed guide" (Financial Times) to the changes coming in the next ten years. He examines the fields that will most shape our economic future, including robotics and artificial intelligence, cybercrime and cybersecurity, the commercialization of genomics, the next step for big data, and the impact of digital technology on money and markets. In each of these realms, Ross addresses the toughest questions: How will we have to adapt to the changing nature of work? Is the prospect of cyberwar sparking the next arms race? How can the world's rising nations hope to match Silicon Valley with their own innovation hotspots? And what can today's parents do to prepare their children for tomorrow?

Ross blends storytelling and economic analysis to show how sweeping global trends are affecting the ways we live. Sharing insights from global leaders—from the founders of Google and Twitter to defense experts like David Petraeus—Ross reveals the technologies and industries that will drive the next stage of globalization. The Industries of the Future is "a riveting and mind-bending book" (New York Journal of Books), a "must read" (Wendy Kopp, Founder of Teach for America) regardless of "whether you follow these fields closely or you still think of Honda as a car rather than a robotics company" (Forbes).

Artificial intelligence is our most powerful technology, and in the coming decades it will change everything in our lives. If we get it right it will make humans almost godlike. If we get it wrong... well, extinction is not the worst possible outcome.

"Surviving AI" is a concise, easy-to-read guide to what's coming, taking you through technological unemployment (the economic singularity) and the possible creation of a superintelligence (the technological singularity).

Here's what some of the leading thinkers in the field have to say about it:

A sober and easy-to-read review of the risks and opportunities that humanity will face from AI.

The Internet and smartphone are just the latest in a 250 year long cycle of disruption that has continuously changed the way we live, the way we work and the way we interact. The coming Augmented Age, however, promises a level of disruption, behavioral shifts and changes that are unparalleled. While consumers today are camping outside of an Apple store waiting to be one of the first to score a new Apple Watch or iPhone, the next generation of wearables will be able to predict if we're likely to have a heart attack and recommend a course of action. We watch news of Google's self-driving cars, but don't likely realize this means progressive cities will have to ban human drives in the next decade because us humans are too risky.

Following on from the Industrial or Machine Age, the Space Age and the Digital Age, the Augmented Age will be based on four key disruptive themes - Artificial Intelligence, Experience Design, Smart Infrastructure, and HealthTech. Historically the previous 'ages' bought significant disruption and changes, but on a net basis jobs were created, wealth was enhanced, and the health and security of society improved. What will the Augmented Age bring? Will robots take our jobs, and AI's subsume us as inferior intelligences, or will this usher in a new age of abundance?

Augmented is a book on future history, but more than that, it is a story about how you will live your life in a world that will change more in the next 20 years than it has in the last 250 years. Are you ready to adapt? Because if history proves anything, you don't have much of a choice.

With these words, Chinese lawyer Xie Yangwas introduced to the brutality of Residential Surveillance at aDesignated Location (RSDL), China's rapidly expanding system forenforced disappearances. Little is known of RSDL, or what happensinside. The People's Republic of the Disappeared will change that. RSDLfacilities, often secret, custom-built and unmarked prisons, are run bypolice or State Security officials. Inside, people are placed outsidethe normal legal system, left in solitary confinement, interrogatedrepeatedly, and often subjected to torture. There is no oversight of the police, and no protection for those inside. In RSDL, you simply vanish. In RSDL, the police have total control.

This book exposes what it islike to be disappeared in China. It is the first anthology written bythe victims themselves, from lawyer Wang Yu who was abducted in themiddle of the night to engineer Tang Zhishun who was taken from acrossthe border in Burma; from IT worker Jiang Xiaoyu who was beaten andthreatened with permanent disappearance to Pan Jinling whose only crimewas dating an NGO worker.

The People's Republic of the Disappearedincludes a foreword by well-known exiled human rights lawyer Teng Biao.The foreword and introduction provide the reader with an understandingof RSDL. The legal chapter at the end offers an exhaustive,authoritative analysis of the domestic law giving rise to RSDL, and theinternational legal framework that China brazenly violates. Thesechapters, along with stories by lawyers Tang Jitian and Liu Shihui trace China's obsession with disappearing dissidents from the early 2000s,through to the Jasmine Revolution movement in China in 2011, and intothe current system of RSDL.

This book is essential reading for academics and journalists, governments and nonprofit workers alike working on orinterested in China, because these stories illustrate, with narrativeclarity, the hollowness of China's rhetoric of the rule of law.Likewise, it is worthwhile reading for anyone studying authoritarianregimes and the struggle for human rights.

Most people who read the news would tell you that 2017 is one of the worst years in recent memory. We're facing a series of deeply troubling, even existential problems: fascism, terrorism, environmental collapse, racial and economic inequality, and more.

Yet this narrative misses something important: by almost every meaningful measure, the modern world is better than it ever has been. In the United States, disease, crime, discrimination, and most forms of pollution are in long-term decline, while longevity and education keep rising and economic indicators are better than in any past generation. Worldwide, malnutrition and extreme poverty are at historic lows, and the risk of dying by war or violence is the lowest in human history.It's not a coincidence that we're confused--our perspectives on the world are blurred by the rise of social media, the machinations of politicians, and our own biases. Meanwhile, political reforms like the Clean Air Act and technological innovations like the hybridization of wheat have saved huge numbers of lives. In that optimistic spirit, Easterbrook offers specific policy reforms to address climate change, inequality, and other problems, and reminds us that there is real hope in conquering such challenges. In an age of discord and fear-mongering, It's Better Than It Looks will profoundly change your perspective on who we are, where we're headed, and what we're capable of.

All the political systems of the modern age have been the products of three distinct ideologies: the first, and oldest, is liberal democracy; the second is Marxism; and the third is fascism. The latter two have long since failed and passed out of the pages of history, and the first no longer operates as an ideology, but rather as something taken for granted. The world today finds itself on the brink of a post-political reality — one in which the values of liberalism are so deeply embedded that the average person is not aware that there is an ideology at work around him. As a result, liberalism is threatening to monopolise political discourse and drown the world in a universal sameness, destroying everything that makes the various cultures and peoples unique. According to Alexander Dugin, what is needed to break through this morass is a fourth ideology — one that will sift through the debris of the first three to look for elements that might be useful, but that remains innovative and unique in itself. Dugin does not offer a point-by-point program for this new theory, but rather outlines the parameters within which it might develop and the issues which it must address. Dugin foresees that the Fourth Political Theory will use the tools and concepts of modernity against itself, to bring about a return of cultural diversity against commercialisation, as well as the traditional worldview of all the peoples of the world — albeit within an entirely new context. Written by a scholar who is actively influencing the direction of Russian geopolitical strategy today, The Fourth Political Theory is an introduction to an idea that may well shape the course of the world's political future.

Believe it or not, today we may be living in the most peaceful moment in our species' existence. In his gripping and controversial new work, New York Times bestselling author Steven Pinker shows that despite the ceaseless news about war, crime, and terrorism, violence has actually been in decline over long stretches of history. Exploding myths about humankind's inherent violence and the curse of modernity, this ambitious book continues Pinker's exploration of the essence of human nature, mixing psychology and history to provide a remarkable picture of an increasingly enlightened world.

When we make mistakes, cling to outdated attitudes, or mistreat other people, we must calm the cognitive dissonance that jars our feelings of self-worth. And so, unconsciously, we create fictions that absolve us of responsibility, restoring our belief that we are smart, moral, and right—a belief that often keeps us on a course that is dumb, immoral, and wrong. Backed by years of research, Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me) offers a fascinating explanation of self-justification—how it works, the damage it can cause, and how we can overcome it. This updated edition features new examples and concludes with an extended discussion of how we can live with dissonance, learn from it, and perhaps, eventually, forgive ourselves.

Ordinary Men is the true story of Reserve Police Battalion 101 of the German Order Police, which was responsible for mass shootings as well as round-ups of Jewish people for deportation to Nazi death camps in Poland in 1942. Browning argues that most of the men of RPB 101 were not fanatical Nazis but, rather, ordinary middle-aged, working-class men who committed these atrocities out of a mixture of motives, including the group dynamics of conformity, deference to authority, role adaptation, and the altering of moral norms to justify their actions. Very quickly three groups emerged within the battalion: a core of eager killers, a plurality who carried out their duties reliably but without initiative, and a small minority who evaded participation in the acts of killing without diminishing the murderous efficiency of the battalion whatsoever.

While this book discusses a specific Reserve Unit during WWII, the general argument Browning makes is that most people succumb to the pressures of a group setting and commit actions they would never do of their own volition.

Ordinary Men is a powerful, chilling, and important work with themes and arguments that continue to resonate today.

Is the world really falling apart? Is the ideal of progress obsolete? In this elegant assessment of the human condition in the third millennium, cognitive scientist and public intellectual Steven Pinker urges us to step back from the gory headlines and prophecies of doom, which play to our psychological biases. Instead, follow the data: In seventy-five jaw-dropping graphs, Pinker shows that life, health, prosperity, safety, peace, knowledge, and happiness are on the rise, not just in the West, but worldwide. This progress is not the result of some cosmic force. It is a gift of the Enlightenment: the conviction that reason and science can enhance human flourishing.

Far from being a naïve hope, the Enlightenment, we now know, has worked. But more than ever, it needs a vigorous defense. The Enlightenment project swims against currents of human nature--tribalism, authoritarianism, demonization, magical thinking--which demagogues are all too willing to exploit. Many commentators, committed to political, religious, or romantic ideologies, fight a rearguard action against it. The result is a corrosive fatalism and a willingness to wreck the precious institutions of liberal democracy and global cooperation.

With intellectual depth and literary flair, Enlightenment Now makes the case for reason, science, and humanism: the ideals we need to confront our problems and continue our progress.

As the true horrors of the Third Reich began to be exposed immediately after World War II, the Nazi war criminals who committed genocide went on the run. A few were swiftly caught, including the notorious SS leader, Heinrich Himmler. Others, however, evaded capture through a sophisticated Nazi organization designed to hide them. Among those war criminals were Josef Mengele, the "Angel of Death" who performed hideous medical experiments at Auschwitz; Martin Bormann, Hitler's brutal personal secretary; Klaus Barbie, the cruel "Butcher of Lyon"; and perhaps the most awful Nazi of all: Adolf Eichmann.

Killing the SS is the epic saga of the espionage and daring waged by self-styled "Nazi hunters." This determined and disparate group included a French husband and wife team, an American lawyer who served in the army on D-Day, a German prosecutor who had signed an oath to the Nazi Party, Israeli Mossad agents, and a death camp survivor. Over decades, these men and women scoured the world, tracking down the SS fugitives and bringing them to justice, which often meant death.

Written in the fast-paced style of the Killing series, Killing the SS will educate and stun the reader.

History is about so much more than memorizing facts. It is, as more than half of the word suggests, about the story. And, told in the right way, it is the greatest one ever written: Good and evil, triumph and tragedy, despicable acts of barbarism and courageous acts of heroism.

The things you've never learned about our past will shock you. The reason why gun control is so important to government elites can be found in a story about Athens that no one dares teach. Not the city in ancient Greece, but the one in 1946 Tennessee. The power of an individual who trusts his gut can be found in the story of the man who stopped the twentieth hijacker from being part of 9/11. And a lesson on what happens when an all-powerful president is in need of positive headlines is revealed in a story about eight saboteurs who invaded America during World War II.

Miracles and Massacres is history as you've never heard it told. It's incredible events that you never knew existed. And it's stories so important and relevant to today that you won't have to ask, Why didn't they teach me this? You will instantly know. If the truth shall set you free, then your freedom begins on page one of this book. By the end, your understanding of the lies and half-truths you've been taught may change, but your perception of who we are as Americans and where our country is headed definitely will.

Radio and television host Glenn Beck has experienced the rollercoaster of life like few others. From the suicide of his mother when he was just thirteen, to his eventual alcoholism, depression, divorce, unemployment, and health scares—Glenn has weathered life's darkest storms.

Any one of those struggles could've ruined him, yet Glenn was able to keep moving forward. He saw past the darkness into the light; past his grief and addictions and into what his life could be.

The process of finding happiness through personal redemption was not easy, but it left Glenn with a blueprint for how to confront future adversity. Glenn is living proof that these steps—he calls them wonders—don't just work on paper. They helped transform his life and can they can help to transform yours as well.

Glenn Beck and Dr. Keith Ablow—two of the most popular and influential personalities in American media today—have joined forces to present a powerful guide to personal transformation and fulfillment that is as unique as their own unlikely partnership. They are called the "7 Wonders" and they can be used by anyone who has made the decision that they are ready to change their life.

After the television talk show host and the bestselling psychiatrist struck up a fast friendship they realized that their experiences with life's struggles were complementary. What Keith had studied, Glenn had lived. What Keith had counseled patients on for years, Glenn had suffered through for decades.

The deeply personal insights they shared brought them to realize that their life stories had seven key principles in common; seven wonders that seemed to be essential ingredients for anyone attempting to transform their life.

Thirteen-time #1 national bestselling author Glenn Beck realized years ago that somewhere along the way, his four children had become more focused on Santa than the meaning of Christmas. No matter how he tried, he could not redirect their attention away from presents and elves to the manger instead.

Glenn didn't want to be the Grinch who spoiled the magic of Kris Kringle, so he had to find a unique way to turn his kids back toward the true meaning of Christmas. He decided the best place to start was by first turning Santa himself back toward Christ.

That was when one of America's best storytellers began to craft a tale that would change everything his kids thought they knew about Santa—the incredible story he went on to tell them that Christmas Eve spans over a thousand years and explains the meaning behind the immortality and generosity of the man named Claus.

The Immortal Nicholas has now been expanded and reimagined into this novel for adults; a novel full of drama, history, legend, and heart. From the snowy mountains of Western Asia, to the deserts of Egypt, to Yemen's elusive frankincense-bearing boswellia trees, this is an epic tale that gives the legend of Santa a long overdue Christ-centered mission.

In this novel, Glenn Beck fundamentally transforms the figure that the world now mainly associates with shopping, all while staying true to the real story of the baby who brought redemption and salvation to the entire world.

If You Could Change Your Life by Reversing Your Biggest Regrets, Sorrows and Mistakes...Would You?

We weren't wealthy, we weren't poor -- we just were. We never wanted for anything, except maybe more time together....

When Eddie was twelve years old, all he wanted for Christmas was a bike. Although his life had gotten harder -- and money tighter -- since his father died and the family bakery closed...Eddie dreamed that somehow his mother would find a way to have his dream bike gleaming beside their modest Christmas tree that magical morning.

What he got from her instead was a sweater. "A stupid, handmade, ugly sweater" that young Eddie left in a crumpled ball in the corner of his room.

Scarred deeply by the realization that kids don't always get what they want, and too young to understand that he already owned life's most valuable treasures, that Christmas morning was the beginning of Eddie's dark and painful journey on the road to manhood. It will take wrestling with himself, his faith, and his family -- and the guidance of a mysterious neighbor named Russell -- to help Eddie find his path through the storm clouds of life and finally see the real significance of that simple gift his mother had crafted by hand with love in her heart.

Based on a deeply personal true story, The Christmas Sweater is a warm and poignant tale of family, faith and forgiveness that offers us a glimpse of our own lives -- while also making us question if we really know what's most important in them.

We've finally heard some news on the migrant caravan. Some of the migrants have given up and gone back home, but some are still there waiting at the border. A leader representing the group has decided to step forward, and he's made out a list of... demands. Remember when I said back in October that this caravan was originally formed as a Leftist act against the Honduran government by people with ties to Venezuela and Cuba? Well what do you know… wait until you hear who this guy is.

Alfonso Guerrero personally walked into the U.S. Consulate in Tijuana, Mexico with a list of demands from the caravan. Get a load of this. The caravan is demanding that if they're not granted immediate asylum they want the following:

Fifty thousand dollars in cash for every caravan member (which would be a total of tens of millions).

The immediate removal of all U.S. economic and military assets in Honduras.

Failure to comply to these demands will result in the caravan continuing to try and penetrate the U.S. border.

I mean, if you're trying to appear like some grassroots movement for migrants that are just escaping the dangers of their own country, you might want to - oh I don't know - tone down the crazy Leftist freedom fighter schtick. I'm just saying. Demanding millions of dollars AND the removal of the U.S. military from Honduras kinda just screams, "Hey check me out. I'm a Marxist terrorist." It would have been basically the same thing if he just charged up to the embassy wearing a beret and shouted "Viva la Revolution!!" while firing off an RPG.

Well, it turns out this isn't the first time Mr Guerrero has tried to claim asylum. Back in 1987 he claimed asylum in Mexico after being suspected by the Honduran and U.S. government for - wait for it - left wing terrorism… Jeez, you know you really can't make this stuff up. This is INSANE. Here's the story…

This is ridiculous. Can we all now agree that this entire charade is a fraudulent scam?

In 1987 Honduras was ground zero for U.S. and Soviet proxy forces fighting the Cold War. The Contra rebels were actually based there, and leftists terrorists would sometimes carry out operations in the country in response. On August 8th a bomb was thrown into the China Palace restaurant, just a few miles from the U.S. military base in Honduras. Six American soldiers were injured in the blast. Alfonso Guerrero was the primary suspect. He escaped to Mexico and claimed asylum. The Reagan Administration charged the Mexican government for quote "harboring a terrorist" for granting Guerrero protection.

But all the caravan wants is a better life in the United States… oh and millions of dollars AND a list of political demands for their home country. This is ridiculous. Can we all now agree that this entire charade is a fraudulent scam? This is a Leftist political stunt. It has been since the very beginning.

Here's an incident that you won't hear about anywhere else. It doesn't fit the mainstream media's transgender narrative, their fairy tale of infinite genders, where any criticism is viewed as transphobic and taboo and certainly not something that the majority of Americans think or feel.

Last week, in West Point, Virginia, a high school French teacher named Peter Vlaming was fired after a five-and-a-half hour hearing that centered on his refusal to use a transgender student's specific gender pronouns. Vlaming said that doing so violated his religious beliefs.

Tolerance is a two-way street. Unfortunately, tolerance on the part of the school division has been noticeably absent. It chose to impose its own orthodoxy on Mr. Vlaming and fired him because he didn't relinquish his rights protected by the First Amendment.

School administrators fired Vlaming "due to this insubordination and repeated refusal to comply with directives made to him by multiple WPPS administrators."

The school justified the firing by pointing to a set of policies aimed at curbing misgendering of transgender students.

Vlaming's lawyer disputed this, saying that the policies include no such mention of transgenderism, adding that:

My client respects the rights of all students, including this student's rights; he simply asked that his rights be respected as well. Unfortunately, the school division refused to consider any solutions that would respect the freedoms of everyone involved.

There is a ray of hope in all of this, though. The students. A group of students from the school immediately staged a walkout in protest of Vlaming's firing.

One student told reporters:

I feel like everyone should have the freedom of speech and the freedom of religion as well.

Students lined up outside the school with signs that said, "Free Vlam." Another included a quote from Ben Shapiro: "Facts don't care about your feelings." Another read "You can't impose delusion onto us."

Whether it's a 'War on Christmas' or just progressivism run amok, the song 'Baby It's Cold Outside' has been firmly in the crosshairs this holiday season. Here are just a few of the headlines making the rounds:

The left might think they are woke and on the right side of history in the wake of the #MeToo movement — but how shocked do you think they'd be if they knew Glenn beat them to the punch over a decade ago? Don't believe me? Take a listen to this clip from our audio vault from 2008.

Christmas has arrived early for mainstream media. They have their first sentencing of a major player in President Trump's inner circle. Yesterday, Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen was sentenced by a federal judge in Manhattan. How did it come to this and how did Cohen explain himself to the judge? We start there next…

President Trump's former attorney, 52-year-old Michael Cohen, is going to jail. Well, it will probably be one of those federal prison camps with a dorm that's more like a college campus. But he's going to be locked up. A federal judge sentenced him to three years in prison for financial crimes, and two months for lying to Congress. He also ordered Cohen to pay $2 million in financial penalties. The judge called Cohen's misdeeds a "veritable smorgasbord of criminal conduct."

As a lawyer, Mr. Cohen should have known better. While Mr. Cohen is taking steps to mitigate his criminal conduct by pleading guilty and volunteering useful information to prosecutors, that does not wipe the slate clean.

Cohen pled guilty in August to eight criminal charges in two different cases. One brought by special counsel Robert Muller for Cohen's lying to Congress about a potential Trump Tower project in Moscow. The second was for bank-fraud, tax, and campaign finance violations brought by federal prosecutors in New York.

President Trump said recently that Cohen has simply been lying to get a reduced sentence for crimes that have nothing to do with him. Cohen was very emotional as he apologized to the judge, saying:

It was my own weakness and a blind loyalty to this man that led me to choose a path of darkness over light. Time and time again I felt it was my duty to cover up his dirty deeds rather than to listen to my own inner voice and my moral compass.

The left thinks that Cohen's sentencing marks the beginning of the end for Trump's presidency. They may be ultimately disappointed in that regard. But this does intensify the long national nightmare of the Muller investigation that seems to have no end in sight.